21st Century Fox shares soar on heels Disney sale reports

(FinancialPress) — Shares of 21st Century Fox (FOXA) rose as much as 8.5% on Monday, after reports of that the company is in talks to sell most of its assets to Disney (DIS) became public.

The deal in question would see Fox selling its movie studio, TV production unit and entertainment networks to the Disney conglomerate. Meanwhile, Fox would keep its news and sports holdings, around which it would restructure itself. Local broadcast stations and its broadcast network would also remain as their own.

The talks have cooled down, for now. CNBC chimed in on the subject and revealed that while”two sides are not currently talking at this very moment,” the talks “could be revisited.”

The move would potentially allow Fox to focus on growing its news and sports networks, freeing itself from its entertainment assets and therefore from having having to spend resources competing with larger media conglomerates such as Comcast and Disney itself.

Meanwhile, Disney would get control over some of the biggest household entertainment brands in Fox Television, 20th Century Fox Studios, FX and National Geographic, as well Star and Sky for international brands. This would greatly bolster its Netflix-style streaming service, set to be launched next year.

Disney made it public that they will be launching its own direct-to-consumer streaming service in 2018. This will have the Mouse locking horns head-on with streaming market leader Netflix (NFLX). With that in mind, the acquisition of Fox‘s assets brings two-fold benefits: for one, it would give a massive media library to Disney to offer clients. On the other hand, it would take away valuable content from the reach of Netflix.

Disney announced earlier this year that it would launch its own direct-to-consumer streaming services next year, putting the company head-to-head with Netflix. In that regard, Fox’s entertainment assets could be a major boon to Disney, not just because of what control of those assets would give Disney, but because of what it could take away from Netflix.